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Chapter 72
The chalice shook in Eli’s hand.It wasn’t heavy. That wasn’t why. The weight came from something else, like the Eye itself had sunk a hook into the silver, and every second he held it, the line reeled tighter into his chest.Around him, the chapel held still. A hundred cloaked Watchers, lanterns raised, waiting. Shadows danced across the cracked stone, stretching too long, curling at angles that hurt the eyes. The students outside murmured against the chapel walls, a muffled tide of fear.Dean Veyra stepped closer, her voice calm as a lullaby:“Keeper. Drink. The Eye must have its vessel. The Seventh toll is close. If you do not bind it now, it will bind you on its own.”Lena’s whisper hissed sharp in his ear: “Don’t listen. This is what they want, to make you one of them.”On his other side, Callum leaned in, urgency in his voice: “If you resist, it will rip itself free. Do you want to see what it does when it’s unchained?”The chalice tilted. The dark liquid lapped at the rim.His
Chapter 71
The campus didn’t sleep that night.Phones lit every window, screens glowing against the storm-dark glass. Videos spread before the rain had even dried from the quad stones. Grainy footage of cloaked Watchers bowing. The fissures burning gold. The Dean raising her hand. And above it all, Eli on the roof, backlit by lightning, the Eye’s mark glowing like a brand on his skin.By dawn, the whole Crest knew his name.The Keeper.Whispers became shouts. Students clustered in hallways, dorm lobbies, stairwells, passing theories as if they were trading contraband.“He summoned the Eye.”“He stopped it.”“He controls it.”“No—he’s possessed. Didn’t you see his face?”Rumors spread faster than the truth could keep up. And truth itself was fractured, no two stories the same.Lena sat at Eli’s side in his dorm, arms folded, jaw tight. Every few seconds, another buzz came from his desk—another text, another missed call. People demanding answers. People begging for help.Eli didn’t touch his phone
Chapter 70
The rain stopped all at once.Not a drizzle fading, not a storm passing. One moment it battered down on the roof and quad in sheets, and the next it was gone. The silence left behind was worse than thunder.Below, the courtyard steamed, smoke rising from the fissures where Eli had hurled the cube. The blackened veins etched across the stones like something alive, pulsing faintly with dying light.The Watchers knelt around it. Every single one. Dozens of cloaked figures, lanterns pressed against the ground, heads bowed low.Students who had braved the storm stood frozen at the edges of the quad, too stunned to move. Some still held up their phones, red recording lights blinking as if technology could protect them. Others clung to one another, whispering prayers that felt too small for what they were witnessing.Eli stood on the roof, every nerve still vibrating from the Eye’s presence. The phantom toll of the Seventh rang inside his bones.Lena pressed a hand to his back. “They’re knee
Chapter 69
The bell rang at midnight.Not a clean toll, but a guttural roar that rolled across the campus like thunder tearing open the sky. Every stone and brick of the Crest shuddered in its wake. Windows rattled, lights flickered, and for one sickening moment, every clock on campus stopped.Students poured from their dorms in confusion. Some clutched their phones, filming the bell tower silhouetted against lightning. Others screamed as the air itself seemed to bend, carrying with it the low vibration of the Sixth Toll. It sank into bone, into teeth, into marrow.Eli felt it in his chest like a hand gripping his heart.He staggered against the music room wall, his fingers clawing at his shirt. The cube burned inside his jacket, pulsing with each toll. Lena caught his arm, her own face pale, eyes wide.“It’s happening again.”Callum’s gaze never left the window. His jaw was clenched, his knuckles white against the sill. “No,” he said. “It’s worse. The Sixth is the Gate.”“What gate?” Lena deman
Chapter 68
The faculty meeting did not end; it fractured.The Dean’s words had settled like a blade across the oak table, cutting alliances in two. Professors who had taught together for decades now avoided each other’s eyes. The storm rattled the windows, thunder shaking the floorboards, as though the Crest itself listened to their silence.Finally, Professor Harrington, the oldest among them, a gaunt man with parchment skin and a voice like gravel leaned forward. “We swore,” he said, his finger trembling on the table’s edge. “We swore never to let it open again.”“And yet here we are,” murmured the man with the gloves. His eyes glittered. “Your oaths are ashes, Harrington. The moment Kingston’s boy set foot in the chapel, the path was unlocked. It was written long before he was born.”The Dean’s jaw clenched. “Do not speak prophecy in this hall. This is a university, not a pulpit.”But the words rang hollow. Everyone knew the Crest had never been just a school.Another voice broke in, a woman
Chapter 67
Rain sheeted down against the stone arches of the Crest, turning the night into a warped mirror of itself. The bells had fallen silent after the fifth toll, but their echo seemed caught in the bones of the campus. Even hours later, students swore they could hear it thrumming through the pipes, whispering in the walls, ringing in the backs of their skulls.No one slept.The dorms were alive with murmurs and shifting shadows, windows flickering with candlelight and phone screens. Rumors had spread faster than the storm, mutating with each telling. Some said the old bell tower had collapsed. Others whispered of a fire in the east wing. A few swore they had seen cloaked figures moving across the quad, their faces hidden, their steps soundless. And in every whispered story, one name surfaced again and again, whispered like a curse or a prophecy.Eli Kingston.His name passed from mouth to mouth, from floor to floor. The rich boy. The arrogant heir. The one who’d been caught sneaking into p
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